Here I am, 10y POE player. $2500+ in micro transactions, Highest supporter pack possible. But now I don’t have an ARPG home. POE2 is now built for a crowd of drive-by toxic players and not for me. So I am now at Last Epoch. I played LE when it came out but got confused by the game and turned off just after you solve the first big quest. Also to be honest the low polish in the art turned me off quite a bit. I am hoping this update brings me back.
So where did GGG go wrong? Its pretty simple. They sold out to gargantuan TenCent which is owned by bean counters that see games as a revenue earned vs spent equation and couldn’t care less about the actual game. Most of them don’t even play games, at all. This is the same as all AAA studios that I have been at or worked for. Most don’t play their own products, or for that matter ANY video game.
EHG: I Know you play your own product, someone mentioned you have a stream though I haven’t seen it. But don’t sell out. The big companies will ruin your game and ruin your name in the pursuit of a 2% year over year growth in revenue. I will be there when you launch. Looking forward to it.
Dude, I remember when GGG was bought by Tecent. I think it’s was on Rital ou Heist League. From there to here, the grinding goes deeper and deeper, and more deeper. Requesting you to spend more and more hours into the game.
I remember posting this critic on Poe reddit and received a mob of players down voting my way to see how the game was going on.
I like poe, but today, it’s not more for me. The game, unfortunately lose the fun.
Last epoch has problems, but I see here the devs are more worried and respect with players.
It was before Betrayal league… which makes it kinda hilarious actually
Also it caused them to change drastically, the grind actually hasn’t gotten worse since then, the game only larger. Methods of QoL in PoE 1 have drastically removed grinding time and ‘tedium without gameplay’.
I wouldn’t count it onto Tencent there, it’s just bad decisions internally, something many companies fall prey to, and being the major reason as to why stuff goes off-course.
Tencent especially is prone to do a ‘non interference’ method. They buy in, they own, they don’t care. Their company is primarily after all a information collection one while making profit on the side, given who they’re owned by actually.
I dont blame just TenCent but its clear that when they owned the game, it went from a company that cared about the game to a company that frankly didnt care anymore.
And the TenCent share of EHG does make me really wonder if I want to get into LE also to be clear.
If anything I have more trust in a company like Tencent that has been very hands-off and has a good track record historically than a big NA or Canada based development company like Activision-Blizzard, Warner Bros or Ubisoft.
Patch nerfs too many think = Tencent is ruining GGG (It has stakes in EHG too btw)
I never got how Tencent is to be blamed… they’re literally the most ‘hands-off’ investor there is from the big ones out there.
Sure, their setup itself is problematic… but they usually don’t intervene unless stuff goes really really bad.
A few things GGG made very wrong with 0.2.0 PoE 2 update! I can compare it for my most hated patch ever (played since 2017) it was 3.15 ARCHNEMESIS bs… But back to topic: nerfing players to the ground, nuked all existed builds AND buffing white monsters hp by 400% (lmao) this is epic fail formula… I wait for april 17 now…
I think this needs to be told, as most people really don’t think about it. Tencent is a Chinese company based in China. BY LAW, all companies storing data or routing data through China must comply with random data siezures and inspections. That means that your data is owned by the Chinese government if Tencent even touches it. Tencent is 110% compliant with this law.
So, while your gaming company may enjoy that influx of cash for the game, they’re trading your privacy to get it. Tencent is not “hands off”. They’re literally mining the new gold.
it really is that simple, you cant escape it, so why try and fight it?
You will end up have so much less enjoyment from anything online if you try and escape data harvesting. you basically cant do anything or play any major game. Sounds like no fun.
Atleast tencent is a chinese company that is stealing my data vs all the american ones selling it to china for profit. I expect that of them.
Yes, they’re basically information brokers, and doing very well with that.
Because ‘no, they don’t have it to that degree commonly’ is the answer.
Sure, getting ‘baseline’ data is easy. That means your name, address, e-mail and so on and so forth. That’s nowadays basically ‘worthless data’. At best a small piece of the grand whole.
What’s interesting though is the data ‘beyond’, meaning things like buying history, online history, all that stuff.
The common practice is that this sort of data is kept away from governments though, as large-scale collection of that can - and will - lead to quite severe situations over time. It’s not without good reason why Tencent seems to ‘miraculously’ buy into the profitable companies over and over while not having to lift a single finger beyond that. And that gives them market power.
Asd for China itself? It gives them informational and market power, meaning they have an upside compared to western countries which actually have some forms of privacy laws and are hence not allowed to even look at that sort of data without a very very good reason… and usually also don’t do it at a grand scale. Causes a country to get substantially more power on the market then it should’ve, at the cost of privacy. And that comes back to bite you personally over a large timeframe as the overall notions found through that data is used to empower their position on a global scale… which is why they do it in the first place.
So it’s not ‘unsubstantial’ in any way. Being owned by Tencent should be a negative point… but for the right reasons and not simply for sentiment. Puts pressure on western countries to reduce those rights as well to stay afloat, and you can’t blame a companies selling to china either - mostly US companies obviously - since that’s the whole premise of their setup, make money so investors take interest… albeit that investor turning out to be china more often then not, acruing even more power on the biggest sector world-wide.
Well, more to the point, it’s a quid pro quo. You want the money? Want access to the Chinese market? Then we host some of your content. Then there’s the privacy aspect. It’s a win win for Tencent and China, but not for the players. Especially if a dev like GGG is going to squander it on a frivolous “vision”.
Tencent may not immediately react to this, but it will strain the relationship. I foresee two routes with GGG. Either they’ll try to placate the player base by giving back “some” of what they lost and hope players don’t notice, or they’ll double down and hope new players with no POE or ARPG experience make up for the loss.
It’s more another ‘Archnemesis’ direction which they go in… just utterly overzealous and trying to produce something which sounds great… but in reality is not as fun as one remembers.
They’ll come around likely, the question is just how long it takes this time. They decided to make PoE 2 separate after Archnemesis went to shit after all… so the same notion coming up in poE 2 was actually… expected!
As Chinese players, we also detest Tencent very much. It is almost a speculator rather than a game development company. But it is almost certain that a good investor will not make the product lose its value. Whether it is sales resources or development resources, I think Tencent can help EHG reach a new level. However, community supervision and correction are also very important at the same time!
I’m glad there’s chineses who doesn’t like Tencent.
I think Poe becomes too big, even by the Poe himself.
Each expansion, makes the game bigger and more bigger.
The grinding increased also.
The game was no for me anymore.
